


Garden Eden

by Lukutoukka



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Ambiguous/Open Ending, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Not Beta Read, One Shot, also there's no angst in here at all, but also kind of ambigious, it's def a happy ending, my gods I love Isaac so much, which is why I wrote this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-16 15:00:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9277169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lukutoukka/pseuds/Lukutoukka
Summary: Stiles is an Highschool teacher with a great love for everything written down ever, a rooftop garden and a mysterious visitor. He gets adopted by medical personnel, adopts a cat himself, gets shaken up and finally finds out who his visitor is.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I haven't had anyone beta this, so any and all mistakes - grammatical, spelling and story wise - are totally my own. Should you find some, you can either tell me or keep them, whatever suits you best. What else? Yeah, this story is set in San Francisco but I'm German and have never set a foot onto American soil, so please excuse any cultural mistakes as well, though I hope that there aren't too much. Likewise for weather and such, research only gets you so far. We can totally chalk some of the mistakes up as writing liberties, right?
> 
> And with that I should just stop rambling, enjoy!

Stiles loved his roof garden more than anything in the world. Somehow he had not only miraculously managed to get a job right out of college, but it didn’t even pay that bad. Good enough in any case to finance a one bedroom apartment in a six story apartment building with a roof garden. While the building wasn’t exactly situated in the best area of the city, it wasn’t that bad either. It was close to the school he was teaching at and the neighbours were nice enough when he met them. Really, the only major drawback was that the building was on one of the bigger streets, less than a mile from the nearest hospital with an emergency room, so ambulances wailing past were somewhat frequent. He got used to that pretty fast though.

  
The building had eleven apartments – two on every floor except the top one where only his flat was, plus his garden. He paid a little extra, but it was so worth it. He moved in with two months to spare before his new job began and used the time to plant as many plants as possible. By the time autumn came – for all that it came at all in San Francisco – he had created a tiny oasis, with tall evergreen plants shielding his garden from the buildings around him, none of them taller than his. The plants also absorbed the street noises a bit, which was an added plus. As long as the weather allowed it, he prepared his lessons on the table he had outside or read in the hammock he had set up.

In January one of the neighbours below him, Lydia, moved out. She and Stiles had instantly hit it off when they met on the elevator during his first week. She had helped him with his garden and he was happy to let her use it – she climbed up over the fire escape and made herself at home, sometimes leaving whatever she was reading behind so that they could discuss it later. He was pretty sure someone moved in at the end of February though he never saw anyone. Sometimes he caught glimpses of a curly-haired guy, but that might well be the newest boyfriend of 3B, simply holding on longer than the others.

At the end of March, he missed Lydia dearly even though they skyped regularly. They were on one of these Skype calls, had been for the past two hours, when Stiles thought he saw someone moving in the gloom outside.

“Hold on Lyds, I think someone is in my garden? Let me just check this,” he said and stood up, walking over to his door.

“Take your bat,” he heard Lydia calling and he chuckled, making a detour to his front door to grab the baseball bat leaning next to it. He slid the glass door open, but stayed in the door frame, eyes adjusting to the darker light outside.

“Hello? Is somebody here?”

No answer. Not that he really expected to actually get an answer, but one could hope. All he could hear was the traffic noise from below, a light rustling and Lydia’s commentary on the situation in the background. Once he was satisfied that no creepy figure was lurking in the shadows, he closed the door and returned to his laptop.

“Overactive imagination,” he declared and they resumed their discussion about Tolkien and his borrowing from the Old Norse sagas.

Over the next few weeks however, he kept both eyes open when he was around his garden and it might be his imagination but he was sure that someone was around while he was gone. There were small discrepancies though nothing that Stiles could really put a finger on: a garden stool he remembered pushing back against the table, the watering can that was empty when he thought he had only filled it up the day before or once the hammock, which looked like it had been moved.

*^*^*

May came with temperatures in the the low eighties and much work for Stiles, so whether or not someone was occasionally in his garden moved to the back of his mind.

It also brought a leggy blonde woman in the elevator. The first time they met, Stiles had had a long day at school with two exams he needed to correct in his bag and the bad aftertaste of two students fighting in his mouth - quite literally as they had knocked over a rack with chemicals, had burned themselves with acid and gotten cuts everywhere and Stiles had breathed in some pulver or another. One of the paramedics had seemed familiar but Stiles hadn’t been able to put a finger on where he knew the guy from. He had introduced himself as Isaac while examining Stiles, his blue eyes serious. Isaac’s colleagues had taken the two fighting students to the hospital and Isaac had only grudgingly allowed for Stiles to stay at the school. Stiles was done for the day, leaning in a corner of the elevator, cup of coffee in his hand, when the front door opened and the blonde women sprinted towards to elevator. Stiles hit the button to hold the door.

“Thank you,” the woman said as she stepped into the elevator. She pressed the button for the fifth floor, taking in the glowing button for the sixth floor and Stiles dishevelled appearance.

“So you’re the guy from the sixth floor. You look like you had a long day. I’m Erica, nice to meet you.” The woman offered one of her rough hands, which Stiles warily accepted. He just wanted to crash in his bed and forget all about this day.

“Stiles.”

“Fantastic. Boyd and I just moved in last week, we’re having a housewarming some time soon. You should come! I’ll definitely get back to you about the date and all, so this is just a heads up. See you around!” She left the elevator, her black high heeled boots clacking on the ground. Stiles stayed behind, staring at where Erica had stood, incredibly happy that their elevator was so fast. Otherwise he might well have been drowned by her flow of words.

They met again about a week after that, Stiles on the phone with Scott on his way in, Erica on her way out, a black guy next to her.

“Stiles! Good to meet you. Saturday, 7 p.m., be there! Oh, and that’s Boyd,” she said, gesticulating towards her companion.

“Hold on Scott, just a second, it’s my new neighbours. Hey, I’m Stiles.” He offered Boyd a hand. “Pleasure to meet you.” The guy, Boyd, took his hand, his face remaining neutral.

“We already met,” he rumbled. “I took two of your students to the hospital last week.”

Stiles winced.

“That was a bad day man, bad day, but I appreciate your work, like, a lot. I need to get going,” Stiles gestured towards his phone, which he still had clutched in his hand.

“But I’ll definitely come to your housewarming. Should I bring anything?”

“Naa, we’re all set up, but thanks for the offer. See you then!” With that, Erica and Boyd were gone.

On Friday, the school issued an extraordinary staff meeting for the next day. Stiles, who had had class meetings all week, didn’t look forward to it. As expected, the meeting was long and exhausting and it was early evening until Stiles made it home. He fell asleep in the hammock, the housewarming party all but forgotten. He woke up in the middle of the night with a blanket that was not his own covering him.

He met Erica again on Monday, clutching at his travel mug while apologising. Everyone saying that the end of the school year was a cakewalk clearly had no idea about a teacher’s workload that time of the year. Erica gracefully accepted his apologies before taking his phone from him, sending herself a text and making him agree to a dinner at theirs sometime soon.

Sometime soon turned out to be about two weeks later. Stiles was finished with most of his workload, the last few weeks of school less stressful for everyone involved. Still, it was the first evening Stiles didn’t spent working through school stuff. The second he arrived, Erica basically wrestled him into a chair and pushed a glass of wine in his hands.

“Don’t even try to help us,” she said while turning back to the kitchen. Just like in his flat, Erica and Boyd’s kitchen and living room were one big area. Stiles leaned back, sipping his wine.

“So, do both of you work at the hospital?” Erica barely looked up from what she was doing.

“Yeah, Boyd brings them in and then I take over,” she explained. “Actually, we met on the job.”

Boyd mashed the potatoes, but somehow managed to sneak a kiss on her temple.

“She’s kickass.” Stiles thought Boyd might elaborate, but in that moment the doorbell chimed again and Erica went to open the door.

“Come in, come in, Stiles is already here.” She returned with two new guys who both looked slightly familiar to Stiles. One of them had black hair, a chiseled jaw with a three-day beard and looked like he could easily carry Stiles all the way down to the ground floor, the other one had locks, piercing blue eyes and a sunny grin. They were wrestled into the chairs opposite from Stiles and introduced as Derek and Isaac. Stiles stared at them.

“I’m sorry, you seem so familiar, but I can’t put my finger on it,” he said and Isaac grinned.

“We were with Boyd at your school to check up on the students who fell into the chemical rack,” he said. “Maybe we should have taken you in for check-up after all.”  
Stiles groaned and downed the rest of his wine glass. “Don’t remind me of that day.”

Now that Isaac had said it, he could remember them. Isaac had been the one checking him up that day. He had only a vague memory of Derek, but since they never spoke he didn’t deem it important.

“Why weren’t you here for the housewarming?” Isaac asked and Stiles told them about his work at school and how stressful they were, when Boyd and Erica put the food on the table. It turned out to be the unusual combination of vegetarian lasagna, salad, mashed potatoes and chicken, because it was Erica and Boyd’s traditional once a month chicken night but Derek was vegetarian.

Over dinner they shared funny stories from work, Stiles got drunk, Derek and Boyd were mostly quiet, but when they shared their insights they were well thought out and, in Derek’s case, often witty. As the evening wore on, Erica and Isaac got tipsy as well, Isaac giggling a lot and Erica’s stories getting lewder. They have regrouped onto the sofas - Erica and Boyd cuddling on the smaller one, Stiles and Derek leaning against the armrests of the bigger one, with Isaac perched in the middle - when Erica finished a story about how she walked in on two residents, “not once or twice but fucking four times, I saw way too much and would like to forget it all, please and thank you”, and turned to Derek.

“What is going on between you and Jennifer, anyway? She’s flirting with you like, all the time.” Derek looked a little uncomfortable.

“I’m not interested in her… I… I just don’t know how to let her down,” he mumbled. “I hoped that maybe if I don’t react to her offers, she might just … stop?” The others murmured sympathetically.

“I’ll help you with that,” Erica promised while Isaac said: “Come to think of it, I’ve never seen you with anyone. How long do we know each other? Two years now?”  
Derek seemed to sink into the cushions.

“I’m not… I’m not actually interested in anyone? Sexually, I mean. And I’m quite happy without a relationship, soo…”

“Hey, it’s cool man, no need to elaborate or something, whatever rocks your boat,” Isaac smiled and nudged Derek friendly.

“What about you, Stiles?”

“Currently single, bisexual and not actively looking, but, like, I’m not opposed to finding someone,” Stiles shrugged.

With that, their conversation turned back to other topics. They talked until the early morning hours, jumping from one topic to another, emptying a third bottle of wine, laughing and discussing almost anything in a light tone. And Stiles - Stiles found himself enraptured by Isaac. He was snarky and sarcastic and at the same time incredibly goofy and funny and his smile, oh dears, his smile.

Finally the yawns prevailed and they got up. Isaac and Boyd discussed whether or not they should wake Derek or let him sleep on the couch, while Stiles and Erica brought their classes and dessert bowls into the kitchen. Just as Stiles finished putting on his shoes and grabbed his stuff, Derek awoke and sat up groggily, asking Isaac to wait up for him. Stiles bid his goodbyes and left, taking the stairs up to his flat.

*^*^*

A couple days later, Stiles found a piece of paper in his mailbox, a number each scrawled next to Derek’s, Isaac’s, Boyd’s and Erica’s name, each of those in another handwriting, none of them very tidy. Of course he didn’t resist the opportunity.

_Stiles to group: Thanks for your numbers, m’lady, gentlemen, Isaac. I hope I decoded your handwritings correctly and this goes to the right people…_

_Stiles to Isaac: The only reason I didn’t include you in the gentlemen was because I didn’t think it was enough._

He then called Lydia. That was way too forward, wasn’t it?

Isaac was the first to answer.

They were well into a discussion about Pratchett - absolutely no excited screaming involved, no no - when Derek send a simple  _nice try._

Boyd’s response came while they discussed Lee Child’s Jack Reacher and simply stated _Erica’s idea_. It was closely followed by Erica’s _don’t make me regret this._

  
*^*^*

Stiles left San Francisco on a particularly foggy morning at the end of June, one week home in Beacon Hills ahead of him. He hadn’t seen the others again before he left, not even met Erica or Boyd in the elevator or something, but he had exchanged masses of texts every day with Isaac.

He was home for half a week, visiting Scott in his vet office, having brunch with Allison and healthy dinner with his dad and was seriously considering to adopt a cat, when his plans changed. The Sheriff broke his leg and of course Stiles stayed to assist him, even though his dad assured him that he didn’t need to. Stiles stayed, kept the house clean, fell in love with a grey tabby missing an eye and half an ear and encouraged Scott, while constantly texting with Isaac. About three weeks after the incident, Stiles found out that it really hadn’t been necessary for him to stay, because Melissa, Scott’s mum, was more than happy to look after the Sheriff. But then Scott finally proposed to Allison and Stiles stayed for the engagement party the next weekend.

He finally returned home four weeks later than he had planned, his new cat Sam with him, expecting his garden to be dry and at least half dead. Neither June nor July had been as hot as May had been, but they had been just as dry and while Stiles plants weren’t too demanding, four weeks in the summer without water were too much even for them. However, his garden looked healthy and green and there was a new rose bush in a pot next to his hammock. He made a mental note to finally find out who was visiting his garden, so he could send them thank you note.

The next week passed in hurry of making the garden cat proof without restricting access to and from the fire exit, speaking to the landlord about installing a cat door and reading two books Isaac had left in his mailbox. (They were great.)

He was home a little longer than a week, the end of his summer holidays starting to loom, when Sam, who had up until then reacted wonderful to living with Stiles, wouldn’t come out from under the bed. After unsuccessfully trying to get him out from under there for quite a while, Stiles gave up and decided to let him be. He spent the evening reading “The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out Of The Window And Disappeared”, one of Isaac’s books, before going to bed, where Sam was still hidden.

Early in the morning, he found himself face to face with a frightened Sam. He needed a second to fully understand what was going on, to make sense of the shaking movement, the noise and his throbbing nose. An earthquake. As soon as his sleepy brain made the connection he rolled under his bed, next to Sam, who used the opportunity to sink his claws into Stiles’ forearm, and held onto the bed frame. After some time that felt like an eternity but was probably closer to half a minute, the earth stopped shaking.

Stiles breathed out shakily and stayed where he was. Sam retracted his claws and snuggled closer to Stiles.

After a few minutes, Stiles rolled out from under his bed and just laid there again, looking up at his ceiling. That turned out to be a bad idea, because his nose was still bleeding and now the blood was flowing into his throat. He got up and took a look around his flat, holding Sam close to his chest with one hand and pressing a tissue under his nose, whispering nonsense to calm both himself and Sam down. Luckily, the house wasn’t hooked onto gas, but the kitchens ran with electricity. Also, his preparations had turned out to be fruitful and nothing had fallen down. Even his books had been held in place by the lips, only two of his chairs had toppled over and the lighter furniture had moved out of their places.

He had just checked the tap - the water was running clean and strong - and was on his way to his emergency kit, when someone pounded on his door and called his name. He opened the door to Erica, who was completely dressed.

“Stiles! We are on our way - Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I am,” he answered, his voice slightly nasal sounding. “I just fell out of my bed and got a bit unlucky with the nose.”

“Are you … sure?” Erica sounded doubtful, taking his chin with one hand and the bloody tissue with the other. She turned his face one way and the other and prodded his nose.

“Ouch!”

“Doesn’t seem to be broken. Put an ice-pack on it and clean yourself up. We’re off to the hospital, it’ll probably be a long day.”

It was a long day. The epicentre had been only about a hundred miles north of San Francisco and even though it hadn’t been too strong, a couple of houses had collapsed - as had an old factory building. Stiles spend the day cleaning up what little mess had been made in his apartment and the slightly bigger mess that was his garden (a couple of potted plants had fallen over and broken). After sweeping up the earth and broken pieces from the pots, he took a nap in his hammock. When he woke up again, the death toll had been official raised to five and the estimated damage in buildings and structures was close to four Billion Dollar.

Stiles had gotten really lucky for the streets were largely okay and his Jeep was undamaged, so in the late afternoon, he went to a nearby store and bought new pots to replace his broken ones. Before he went back up to his flat, he went on a walk through his neighbourhood. Most of the buildings in his neighbourhood were either relatively new or only one or two stories high, so damage was little. Dusk was falling and an evening fog was creeping in when he came back to his Jeep and hauled the plant pots into the elevator and then into his flat.

He was dragging the pots through his living room to the garden door, when he noticed that someone was lying in the hammock. Intrigued, he left the pots in the middle of his living room and went to find out who his mysterious guest was.

Sleeping in his hammock with Sam curled in on his chest, was a dust-covered Isaac. Even sleeping, he looked tired. Stiles got the blanket he had found spread over himself the evening he had slumbered Erica and Boyd’s housewarming party and spread it over Isaac’s lower half, careful to disturb neither the man nor the cat.

*^*^*

He woke Isaac two hours later. It had become cold and damp, there was even a light film of dew on Isaac’s hair already. Stiles gently shook Isaac’s shoulders.

“Isaac? Hey, you gotta wake up. We don’t want you to get ill.”

Isaac startled awake, dislocating Sam in the process, who meowed indignantly and stalked off. Stiles took a step back, holding his hands up.

“Sorry, I didn’t want to scare you. I thought you probably shouldn’t sleep out here.” Isaac blinked sleepily at him. “I’m cooking pasta with chanterelles I’m willing to share.”

Stiles gave Isaac a towel and some clean clothes, before shooing him off to take a shower. Isaac re-emerged sometime later in Stiles’ sweatpants and one of Stiles’ Marvel shirts, his hair dishevelled and still damp. He grinned sheepishly at Stiles, who gestured for him to sit down at the set table.

“Sorry I fell asleep in your hammock.”

Stiles put the pan with the pasta on the table and sat down too.

“I’m more than happy to share my little garden and my hammock with you.”

**Author's Note:**

> As I said, I'm German and we don't get any earthquakes. I did some research - the red cross page here http://www.redcross.org/prepare/disaster/earthquake has all the info in one place, for example - but especially with the impact of the earthquake I think I'm skirting a fine line. Feel free to point out any glaring errors I made.


End file.
